Victory: Council Passes Bill to Reduce Single-use Bags

Yesterday, the Council voted in favor of I.209, a bill aimed at reducing the use and negative impacts of carryout bags by requiring a 5-cent charge for bags in NYC grocery and retail stores.

Every year, New Yorkers dispose of 9.37 billion single-use plastic bags — and millions of them end up in our neighborhoods, trees, streets, and oceans. Additionally, the City spends $12.5 million per year to send them to landfills, and even more to clean them off playgrounds, beaches, parks, and other public places.

Unlike other cities, this bill is not plastic bag ban. Instead, customers who want to use a single-use bag would pay a small fee, which encourages people to bring reusable bags when they shop, but makes sure bags are still available when you need them. The bill is expected to eliminate the majority of bags from our waste stream and bring us one step closer to achieving our OneNYC zero waste goals.